JOHN B. WATSON (January 9, 1878-September 25, 1958)
John Broadus Watson was born in Greenville, South Carolina to a poor family. He was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism, after doing research on animal behavior. He also conducted the controversial "Little Albert" experiment. Watson grew up in Travelers Rest,South Carolina and attended Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina and left with a masters degree in 1903. He spent a year as a principle at a grade school, then entered the University of Chicago to studyx?fdsaASDFGJKL;'
";DS\=2. "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select--doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years." –John B. Watson, Behaviorism, 1930 HIS STUDY ON ANIMAL BEHAVIOR In 1913, Watson published the article "Psychology as the Behaviourist Views It" — sometimes called "The Behaviorist Manifesto". In this article, Watson outlined the major features of his new philosophy of psychology, called "behaviorism". The first paragraph of the article concisely described Watson's behaviorist position:
Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute. The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorist's total scheme of investigation.
Watson also introduced his theory of thinking as consisting of "subvocal speech" in the article. With his "behaviorism", Watson put the emphasis on external behavior of people and their reactions on given situations, rather than the internal, mental state of those people. In his opinion, the analysis of behaviors and reactions was the only objective method to get insight in the human actions. This outlook, combined with the complementary ideas of determinism, evolutionary continuum, and empiricism has contributed to what is now called radical behaviorism.
TIMELINE:
1878 ~ John Broadus Watson was born in Greenville, South Carolina.
1891 ~ John's father, Pickens Watson, left his family.
1899 ~ John graduated from Furman University.
1901 ~ John majored in psychology and minored in philosophy and neurology at the University of Chicago. He married Mary Ikes.
1903 ~ John B. Watson received his doctorate from the University of Chicago.
1905 ~ Dr. Watson's first child, Mary, was born. He enrolled at John Hopkins University
1906 ~ Watson was hired as an instructor at the University of Chicago
1907 ~ Watson was hired as an associate professor of psychology at John Hopkins University. It was at JHU that he became known as the Founder of Behaviorism.
1913 ~ Watson gave the lecture and published the article entitled "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It." 1914 ~ He published Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology.
1915 ~ Watson became the President of the American Psychological Association.
1916 ~ Dr. Watson began his study on mental illnesses. He began working in advertising at the J Walter Thompson Agency.
. 1919 ~ Watson published Psychology From the Standpoint of a Behaviorists.
. 1920 ~ Watson was dismissed from John Hopkins University. He published the "Little Albert" Experiment. He turned his focus to advertising.
1924 ~ Watson became Vice President of J Walter Thompson Agency. He published Behaviorism.
1928 ~ Watson published the Psychological Care of Infant and Child.
1945 ~ He retired as Vice President of William Esty Agency.
1958 ~ Dr. John Broadus Watson burnt all of his unpublished works and died a short time later.
"LITTLE ALBERT" EXPERIMENT:
A famous psychological experiment conducted by Watson and a graduate student Rosalie Raynor
. A child was used in this experiment and they called him Albert B. but is popularly known today as Little Albert. At about the age of nine, Watson and Raynor exposed the child to several stimuli including a white rat, a monkey, a rabbit, masks, and burning newspaper. They observed his initial reactions, but he showed no fear to the items. Watson exposed him to the white rat a second time, this time making a loud noise by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer, and naturally the boy started crying because of the loud noise. A third time proved that expecting to hear the loud noise, the boy started crying right away when exposed to the white rat. This experiment presents an example of how classical conditioning can be used to condition an emotional response. After the conditioning, Watson concluded that the boy feared not only white rats but anything white and furry.
FUN FACTS:
Watson went to college at the age of 16
he married Mary Ikes, whom he met at the University of Chicago and had 2 children
he cheated on his wife and they got a divorce, and then he remarried with one of his graduate students
he is often referred to as the "father of behaviorism"
JOHN B. WATSON (January 9, 1878-September 25, 1958)
John Broadus Watson was born in Greenville, South Carolina to a poor family. He was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism, after doing research on animal behavior. He also conducted the controversial "Little Albert" experiment. Watson grew up in Travelers Rest,South Carolina and attended Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina and left with a masters degree in 1903. He spent a year as a principle at a grade school, then entered the University of Chicago to studyx?fdsaASDFGJKL;'";DS\=2.
"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select--doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years." –John B. Watson, Behaviorism, 1930
HIS STUDY ON ANIMAL BEHAVIOR
In 1913, Watson published the article "Psychology as the Behaviourist Views It" — sometimes called "The Behaviorist Manifesto". In this article, Watson outlined the major features of his new philosophy of psychology, called "behaviorism". The first paragraph of the article concisely described Watson's behaviorist position:
WORKS CITED